Israel: Bus attack work of 19-year old Palestinian member of Hamas
According to the police Abdul Hamid Abu Srour, a native of Bethlehem, the only victim of the explosion was the author of the attack. He died April 20 from his injuries. The extremist group confirms that the boy was one of its members but denies (again) any direct involvement.
Jerusalem (AsiaNews / Agencies) – The bus bombing of April 18 last, in which 20 people were wounded and the bomber died, was carried out by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas according to Israeli police . They report that the only victim of the attack was a suicide bomber, naming 19 year old Abdul Hamid Abu Srour, a native of Bethlehem. The young man died on April 20, two days after the bombing from serious injuries.
Hamas from the outset denied responsibility for the act; later, following the boy's death, a spokesman for the fundamentalist movement confirmed that Abu Srour was one of its members, but, again, denied direct involvement in the attack.
In the last hours Israeli authorities have made several arrests in the Bethlehem area, in connection with the attack on the bus which, in its modality and target, is reminiscent of the attacks of the early years of this decade, at the time of second intifada.
Shoham Ruvio, spokeswoman for the Shaare Zedek Medical Center, announced the young man’s death stressing that "one of the two seriously injured" being treated in the clinic, who "had lost both legs" in the blast, had died in the night of April 20. A few hours later the Palestinian Minister of Health and Hamas have identified the boy as Abu Srour, a resident in the Aida refugee camp, in the occupied West Bank.
Several Palestinian groups and citizens have expressed their condolences to the family. Posters soon began appearing in the camp where they live remembering the young man as a "martyr".
Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and has carried out a series of attacks on Israeli buses in the early years of this decade, described the April 18 attack as a "natural response to Israeli crimes". Yesterday the Shin Bet – the agency in charge of the internal security in Israel – carried out several arrests among Abu Srour’s friends and acquaintances, who are still undergoing questioning.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tied the attack to the wave of stabbings, shootings and car rammings which have become distinctive of the third Intifada of knives, which in the last six months has caused the deaths of 29 Israelis and at least 200 Palestinians.
Interviewed by AsiaNews Adel Misk, a doctor and Palestinian activist, spokesperson of The Parents Circle an association that brings together some 250 Israeli and 250 Palestinian families of victims of the conflict, said that the attack is the wrong answer to a mistaken occupation. The attack, says the activist, is the fruit "of Israel’s occupation policy ", the "lack of freedom" for Palestinians and the lack of will among the various leaders to "sit down and talk, to sign a peace agreement with one another ". The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is exacerbated by the international communities disinterest , concludes Misk, which seems to have become accustomed to the problems of the Middle East, and only sees Iraq, Syria, Yemen.
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